Dixon council OKs year extension of electric service contract

DIXON — The Dixon City Council approved a one-year extension of its electrical service contract Monday, June 18, for residents and small businesses within city limits.

The contract for the municipal aggregation program with MC Squared Energy Services, effective until September 2026, offers residents and small businesses power distributed by ComEd at the same fixed rate as ComEd. The primary purpose of aggregation programs is to save residents money by offering the service at a lower rate than ComEd would, but “this year we can’t do that,” Dixon City Manager Danny Langloss said Monday.

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The city of Dixon has signed a third party contract with MC Squared Energy Services effective June 17, 2025, for electrical service. Power will continue to be supplied by ComEd. (Alex T. Paschal)

However, participating in the program won’t cost residents anything extra and its beneficial for the city because in the contract MC Squared agrees to give Dixon a monthly $1,667 civic contribution, which comes to about $20,000 for the year.

“If we did nothing, then we would receive nothing, and there’s no benefit, so there’s still a benefit. And then we would reassess this in one year,” Langloss said.

For residents, they “can opt in or out of the program at any point” with “no fees, no penalties, no problems. They are still billed by ComEd, and they still have their energy delivered by ComEd,” said Adam Hoover, director of strategic accounts at NIMEC.

“A lot of times when we engage municipal aggregation, the cost savings by grouping is pretty significant, but the energy market is not a great place right now,” Langloss said.

Hoover said NIMEC does about 45 of these programs and there hasn’t been any in the last couple of years that have been able to get a rate that’s lower than ComEd.

“It’s not just a Dixon thing. It is a kind of Illinois thing. For what it’s worth, Dixon gets one of the best fixed rates, we just can’t get under the ComEd rate,” Hoover said.

Langloss said the city has been able to save “a lot of money over the years” by doing this program.

Two years ago, “I think you were saving residents $250 to $300 a year so that those benefits are just so strong,” Hoover said.